Tom Barrett in Unintimidated, by Scott Walker
On Education:
Ending collective bargaining saved Milwaukee $25M/year
My opponent in both the 2010 election and the 2012 recall, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, used our [public union-busting] reforms to save his city millions of dollars. Barrett had warned that Act 10 would make Milwaukee's "structural deficit explode."
But after Act 10, [a news report] said that "new figures show Milwaukee will gain more than it will lose next year from the state's controversial budget and budget repair legislation. The city projects it will save at least
$25 million a year--from health care benefit changes it didn't have to negotiate with the unions, as a result of provisions in the.budget repair measure that ended most collective bargaining for most public employees."The paper reported that the city
would come out with a net gain of at least $11 million for its 2012 budget, "reducing the spending cuts that Mayor Tom Barrett and the Common Council must impose."
Somehow he failed to mention this during the recall campaign.
Source: Unintimidated, by Scott Walker, p.147
Nov 18, 2013
On Environment:
2012 governor campaign focused on environment & community
The best evidence our reforms had worked was this: Once Barrett had secured his party's nomination, he essentially stopped talking about Act 10 altogether. As one reporter put it, "Barrett had made his campaign chiefly about jobs, women's rights, the
environment, community safety, and especially an investigation into the conduct of aides who worked for Walker. Barrett is running on everything except the collective bargaining reforms." There was a reason for that: The polls had shifted in our favor.
Source: Unintimidated, by Scott Walker, p.165
Nov 18, 2013
On Jobs:
2011 TV Ad: Wisconsin dead last in job creation
The Barrett campaign got some traction when he attacked us on jobs. A string of monthly jobs reports suggested that WI had lost 33,900 jobs in 2011. Barrett put up ads declaring that WI was dead last in the country in job creation. He accused me of
having taken my eye off the ball on what should have been our #1 priority in order to pursue an "ideological agenda" (later, voters would learn that our opponent had the facts wrong).It was a powerful attack, and it was starting to work. But then
Mayor Barrett made a strategic error. He suddenly stopped talking about jobs and started running multiple ads attacking me over misconduct by some of my former aides in Milwaukee County. The following year, I was cleared.
The jobs statistics Barrett had been citing were not accurate. Unfortunately, the final BLS report for 2011 that would have undermined Barrett's charges was not scheduled to come out until 3 weeks after the recall election.
Source: Unintimidated, by Scott Walker, p.184-6
Nov 18, 2013
Page last updated: Feb 26, 2019